I decided to add mulch to the old not-actually-flower beds in front of my house that were now mostly dirt, old bark, weeds, and a sprinkling of cat poop. I walked into the closest big box store nursery section and asked the stocker to point me to the mulch section.

“It’s back in that corner. Or I have a few bags up here on clearance for a dollar-fifty,” he said.

“Sold!” I replied. There were three bags of red mulch sitting on a cart, exactly the number I needed in a red color that was just fine, marked down because of holes in the bag. A few minutes later and my house looked much nicer.

I came across these quilt pictures while updating my photo folders. I don’t remember anything about this quilt and I hadn’t renamed the pictures yet to provide clues. Maybe it was for a friend in Minnesota, baby #3? The pictures were taken November 2013, does this theory work with that timeline? Have I made quilts for all of their children? If that’s the case I better get cracking on the quilt for baby #4 due this fall.

My new kitchen is smaller than my apartment kitchen, with less storage and unusable counters tucked in corners and cabinets that are suited for somebody 6’2″ and not 5’2″. Also, there’s not a single cupboard large enough to hold a cookie sheet, and no there’s not a drawer under the oven.

There is a wide ledge outside the kitchen window, which looks onto the large patio and backyard, so that part is cool.

Here are the cards I made after seeing the ones on Crazy Mom Quilts. The scraps are from a Mother’s Day quilt I made for my mom and a baby quilt for a friend. The pink floral is from a shirt my grandmother used to wear (she died in spring 2007, and I used pieces of her clothing in the quilts I made for my mom and aunt). The oranges are from a couple apron swaps last fall.

Update: To make them, I sew strips of fabric to a piece of paper then attached the paper to the front of a card with double-sided tape along the edges. I sewed right-sides-together then pressed open each addition, chain piecing four or five cards at a time so I didn’t have to constantly start and stop the machine. My scraps were various lengths, which I cut even to the paper after they were all added. I’ve seen others who sewed directly to the card and left the raw fabric edges visible, and versions with decorative stitching across the front.